


the wind is calling my name

by andchaos



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesiac Steve Rogers, Bucky remembers everything, Canon Divergence - Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Happy Ending, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Role Reversal, but it wasn't supposed to be that way! this got away from me, somehow that's actually sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 15:51:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8898064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andchaos/pseuds/andchaos
Summary: Bucky Barnes dies in 1944.Except he doesn’t. He blinks and opens his eyes in time to see Steve Rogers falling out of a helicarrier, miles and miles down through the air, in the bright new age of 2014.Somewhere in the future, Steve Rogers wakes up and has no idea who he is.





	

            Bucky Barnes dies in 1944, except that he doesn’t. It is not a peaceful death; night does not gently come over him, like a shawl laid down over his shoulders. He dies scrambling, roughed up, bloody all over, and not when he falls from a train and his arm rips clean off his shoulder and the snowy ravine robs the last beats from his trembling heart. He really dies a couple years later, the last time he closes his eyes screaming in pain and knows who he is and knows what it is he should be fighting against, and what it is he should be fighting for. Bucky dies in 1955, and that’s the last he ever knows.

            Except he doesn’t. It isn’t. He wakes up somebody else, someone with his face and his voice and his sharpshooting skill, and he lives on for another fifty-nine years as another person entirely. Somebody with no name—some _thing_ else completely. As far as the history books are concerned, Bucky Barnes doesn’t exist at all anymore, and he’s well and truly dead because the Winter Soldier has been born to take his place.

            Except then things change. One minute Bucky goes down screaming, and the next thing he knows the world is loud and on fire and he’s completely alone. He blinks and opens his eyes in time to see Steve Rogers falling out of a helicarrier, miles and miles down through the air, in the bright new age of 2014.

            Bucky doesn’t think—he takes a running start and dives right down after him.

            Bucky doesn’t know a lot of things, still. He doesn’t know where most of his memory is. He doesn’t know the year, at first—that, among other things, will come later. He doesn’t know anything except the sharp pull in his gut telling him to _follow that man_ , a single thought screaming at him, ripping right through his heart. So he listens to it, and he does follow, right down into the Potomac, and he cuts swiftly through the water, swimming and fighting the burn of his lungs until his hands clutch finally around a body part. He grabs the man’s arm and pulls, and he barely knows him, and he has no idea why he’s struggling so hard to do this for a man he does not know, but he knows that he has to—every part of him aches until he does. So he pulls him up to shore, and stands for a moment gazing down at his face, and at last the ache ebbs a little. Something else pulls at the edges of his brain instead, something a little like recognition— but something a lot like fear heaves at the base of his gut too, so Bucky turns and walks away.

            There is a flickering though, now: He knows him. There is something about that sharp shock of blond hair and that open, trusting face, and—He does. Not all the way, maybe, but there is something there, and he doesn’t like not having all the answers. Things have been so clear for so long: Get a mission, fulfill it, return to base. This not knowing is a strange in-between state in which he does not like to muddle. He gets the feeling that things are about to be very strange. It’s like he’s standing on the edge of a chasm where he knows there is nothing good down below, but he wants to go and see for himself anyway. Whatever his memory is hiding from him, this man means something—and Bucky is determined to fill in the gaps.

            Bucky Barnes was never dead. But for the first time in a very, very long time, he begins to flicker through the shrouded mask that was pushed over his mind, and he begins to reawaken.

 

\- - -

 

            Somewhere in the future, Steve Rogers wakes up and has no idea who he is.

            He sits up and starts gasping, and his heart monitor is going crazy; nurses rush in and are patting him all over, on his arms and his legs and everywhere else, and they’re saying things to him that Steve can’t understand at all because he’s still breathing really hard and he can’t pay attention to anything except the pounding in his head and the instinct to assess his situation as fast as possible so he can pick a move to make. He has no idea where he is, but some things are clear, and he quickly realizes that he’s in a hospital, except—

            Except he has absolutely no idea what might have put him there in the first place. Nurses are filtering all around him, now messing with his bed and the machines around him, and one is looking him directly in the eye and babbling. Steve doesn’t have the faintest inkling what she might be saying.

            He bats at the air with one hand until she backs up, giving him some space. Now satisfied that he’s not in any immediate danger, most of the nurses begin to leave the room, except for one who seems to be checking his vitals and this one in front of him, looking at him patiently and waiting for him to get his bearings. His gaze darts around, on the nurses, on the things connected to him, on the music filtering dimly through the room. He has a faint headache and he can’t remember the last time that was true.

            “Mr Rogers—”

            Steve pauses. He blinks back incredulously at her. He says, “ _Who_?”

            The woman just looks at him for a very long time. The other nurse has paused in messing with the machine by his bedside, and is now regarding him with one hand over her heart. The first woman blinks rapidly and does not lose her composure when she says measuredly, “Oh my.” The two nurses look at one another.

            “Should we get Director Fury?” asks the blonde nurse by the machine.

            The brunette woman glances at Steve again.

            “Yes,” she says at length. “Yes, I rather think we should.”

            Steve says, “Wait! Can somebody explain—” but it’s like he doesn’t even exist at this point. The women leave him in bed calling after them and exit the room together, now whispering fiercely under their breath to one another. Steve gives up on shouting after a moment and lays his head back down on his pillow, glaring up at the ceiling instead. He struggles to recount what might have put him here, in this hospital that he does not remember needing, but no memories surface. Instead, he begins to count off the things that he does know for sure.

            One, he’s in a hospital bed.

            Two, he has a pounding headache.

            Steve takes a deep breath in, and lets it out, and does that a few more times, trying not to have a panic attack. Yeah, he’s screwed.

            At least, he rationalizes—as he carefully sits up and begins to pick at the IV taped to his arm, but his nails are blunt and it’s difficult to peel away—at least he seems to have some of the basic faculties required of him: he can, for instance, remember how to talk and assess his situation; he can coherently plan out his next stage of action, and he knows enough to know that things are very, very wrong. His daring escape is otherwise thwarted as he finally gets the tape off and moves to pull the IV out, only to hear somebody speak up from the foot of his bed.

            “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

            Steve looks up; a pretty redhead is leaning against the doorframe in the entrance of his room, standing with her hands in her pockets. She’s smirking at him. Steve’s brain claws and inches towards a name, but it can’t quite grasp it. He has, against the warning signs flickering in his head, the distinct urge to trust her.

            The woman steps further into the room and says, still looking and sounding smug, “Don’t you know anything, Rogers? First rule, never pull out your IV.”

            She makes a _tsk_ ing sound. Steve looks back at her warily. Despite his apparent inclination to trust her, she has yet to give him a reason why. Rather than revealing any more information than is strictly necessary to find the truth, he says carefully,

            “Where are we?”

            “Special SHIELD healing facility,” she says, shrugging one of her shoulders smoothly. She sits down at the edge of his bed. Steve recognizes that as a sign of trust, too. “Sam will be mad he missed you waking up; he just stepped out for a coffee, he’s been here for days.”

            She nods, just barely, at the source of the music playing idly in the background, a phone set up to a speaker system, playing something from _Trouble Man_ by Marvin Gaye. Steve only knows because he squints to read the name on the screen, his attention lingering just long enough that he doesn’t have to take his eyes off the woman for too long. When he looks back at her, her face has melted into something a little less sharp.

            “You don’t know me at all, do you?” she says. She sounds more sympathetic than upset, though. “That’s what the nurses told Fury anyway.”

            Only now, watching her look at him expectantly and knowing that she doesn’t really expect anything from him, does the name come up to Steve’s throat.

            “Natasha,” he says. The name has no meaning behind it, no flood of memories. He only knows that it’s hers.

            She nods, her mouth a thin line, but something around her eyes makes him think that she’s pleased.

            “They asked to send a familiar face to break it to you gently,” said Natasha. “They figured it would help generate some of your memory back. I know you like Fury just fine, but we were….friends.”

            She sounds like she doesn’t know the word very well. Steve feels something like affection wash through him, warm and sure. He says gently, “Then tell me.”

            So Natasha does. If Steve doesn’t remember any of the things that she’s talking about, well, she assures him that he will, eventually.

            “You’ll heal,” Natasha promises him, after she’s done telling him who he is, and who SHIELD is—who SHIELD was, before they tore it all down together. Steve thinks that it does sound like a very him thing to do. “It’s what you do best. Well, besides getting yourself into a whole lot of trouble.”

            She’s teasing, he realizes, as she smirks across at him again. He rolls his eyes at her and a laugh rips from her, delighted. Steve gets the sense that she does not show her cards very easily and is pleased that she seems, at least, to be pretending not to play it close to the chest, even if she’s only faking it to speed his recovery. He smiles back anyway, happy regardless.

            “Well, how did I wind up here?” Steve asks after a moment.

            Natasha does not immediately answer. She sighs, looking down at her hands for a long few seconds before looking up at him slowly. She doesn’t seem to have the words, but before she has to find them, somebody else speaks instead; and they both whip their heads up towards the door.

            “That’s a very long story,” the man says, sounding very reasonable, and Steve says, “Sam.”

            Beside him, Natasha nods approvingly. She murmurs, “There you go, slugger,” but Steve ignores her in favor of watching Sam enter the room much more slowly and much less carefully than Natasha had.

            “I thought you would want these, Cap,” said Sam. He holds up a handful of files that he has in his hands, and Steve’s eyes catch on the labels on them: _CONFIDENTIAL_. He wonders if they’re on him or whatever put him here. “After they told me you woke up, I made a detour to records.”

            “And they just gave them to you?” Steve says, brow furrowing. He pushes himself up a little more on the bed.

            Sam takes a seat beside him, on a chair that has a blanket thrown over it like somebody’s been staying there for a couple of nights. He throws the files on Steve’s lap and spreads his hands.

            “All of SHIELD’s intel is on the internet now, anyway,” he says, throwing a significant look to Natasha. She does not look abashed. “They could hardly keep me from digging, this was easier. Here. This might help fill in some blanks for you.”

            “He doesn’t remember much,” Natasha warns Sam. “Fury said it might be awhile before his brain heals up enough to get it all back. It was a long fall.”

            “But it will all come back, right?” said Steve, looking up at her. His hands, folded around the files on his lap, curl around the edges, but his attention is not for them.

            He doesn’t miss the look cut between the others, though Natasha does reassure him, “You’re expected to make a full recovery.”

            “Maybe don’t read those for a few days,” Sam suggests. “You’ll want…well, just wait a bit.”

            “Don’t do anything stupid,” Natasha says severely, and it occurs to Steve that she already knows what these files are about. “Even if you want to, you’re supposed to stay here and get better. You won’t be any good to…Look, Steve. You might want to…go out, after you read those files. I get the impulse, I really do. And once you’re better, I won’t even stop you—Sam’s already agreed to come with you. Just wait until you’re better before you do anything stupid.”

            Steve’s brow furrows. He says, “What—” but he doesn’t get to finish his question, because Natasha stands fluidly all of a sudden, and even Sam gets to his feet, like they’ve both been summoned by some unheard command. Sam touches a few fingers to his ear, and Steve thinks he understands.

            “We’re being called in,” Natasha says. Sam grimaces at him apologetically. “We have to debrief the Director on any developments. Is there anything you’d like us to report?”

            The way she’s looking at him, so carefully—Steve gets the distinct impression that she is giving him an opportunity right now, although he can’t imagine what she might want him to do with it. He gives a jerky little shake of his head.

            “Is Fury the….the Director?” he says.

            Natasha and Sam look at one another again, a move which is getting increasingly infuriating.

            “He used to be,” Sam says after a pause. He seems to be weighing how much he wants to tell him. “He’s…underground now. Maria Hill’s acting director now….of what’s left of SHIELD, anyway.”

            “You don’t work for them,” Steve says, only recognizing it as true when it comes out of his mouth.

            Sam’s mouth is a grim line. “No,” he agrees, “but I helped leave it a mess. I can’t just run away now that they need me to do my part in putting it back together.”

            “You’ll come with me when I’m out of here,” Steve says. Also balanced and sure. Another fact.

            Sam nods tightly. “Of course.”

            “We have to go,” Natasha says, and it sounds like a warning. The pair of them leave together, both pausing in the door to shoot one last, lingering look back at him—but neither of them say anything more, and then they’re gone. Behind them they leave nothing but Steve and his wash of maybe-memories and a burning curiosity in his gut to find out what he’s missing.

            He looks down at the files in his hands. He swore he wouldn’t look at him—but then, if Natasha and Sam really didn’t want him to go through them, would they have left them with him at all? Steve’s head begins to ache dully again when he wonders after their motivations for too long. He still doesn’t know what’s real or not. All he knows is that he’s holding what might be all of his answers in his hands right now, and he doesn’t plan on wasting it all just because some guy he wants to trust told him not to and maybe meant it.

            Steve doesn’t know what he expected, when he opens the files. In truth, he thinks he was looking for that same sinking realization in the pit of his stomach that he got when he saw Natasha or Sam, that faint tugging telling him that he was on the edge of realizing something that mattered to him. He thought that this was the big important truth for which he was waiting, and maybe—and this was a foolish hope, but one he harbored nevertheless—that after he read the files, it would all come flooding back to him in a rush. Every single burning, potent truth.

            What happens really goes more like this: Steve opens the files, and pictures stare back at him. He flips through idly, and there are more pictures, and then descriptions of brutal torment, and then mission reports, and various dates and code words and a whole lot of other things that will take a while to put all the pieces together about, details of crimes and periods of stasis, and mission reports, mission reports, and in the very back, a small footnote in red: a backstory, short, just a single paragraph long.

            It goes like this: Steve ignores all of that, all the gory details and explanations, because it makes his head pound and he will have plenty of time to sift through the whole file later and figure it all out. Instead he flips back to the first page of the file and touches his fingers to the two pictures there. One, big and blue, of a man with his eyes closed behind a thick metal door, with what looks like frost creeping around the edges of the window that looks in to the man’s face. Just below that, there is a smaller picture of the same man, younger, in army fatigues that Steve would recognize anywhere; he fought in that war, after all.

            Beneath the pictures are two names. The first reads CODENAME: WINTER SOLDIER and beneath that, in that same red pen that only appeared once in the file, there reads AKA: JAMES BUCHANAN BARNES.

            And it goes like this: Steve looks at the file and he has no idea who Bucky is.

 

\- - -

 

            Bucky spends a lot of time on the edges of his past. He spends three weeks, actually, almost a month dodging in and out of places that he knows are more dangerous than helpful, but it doesn’t matter. SHIELD is crumbling to pieces and Bucky gets the answers that he’s looking for, and every hour, every second he knows more and more about who he is. The problem is that he also spends a lot of time picking up information on Steve, and from the hospital records he seems to be spending a lot of time asking questions to which he should already know the answers.

            Bucky is no fool, and because of that he knows very much that he is nearly running out of time. SHIELD, after all, will be rebuilding steadily after their fall, and that means that he is only a few executive decisions away from Steve being sequestered away for good. They will not wait long before turning their sights on Captain America, after all, because with Bucky gone rogue, Steve’s safety is in danger—or they think it is, anyway. Once again, because of him. Bucky wonders how that seems to happen so much, when all he ever wanted to do was protect him. With Steve in danger, it’s only a matter of time before SHIELD tries to do something to keep him safe, and only a matter of time after that before Steve slips away from them to go looking for answers. Bucky would much rather skip the part where Steve goes searching down roads from which he cannot come back, and he would rather do it when he still knows exactly where Steve is.

            It isn’t, precisely, that he is in a great rush to see Steve. He has done things, after all. Things that should never have to muddy the hands and heart of somebody like Steve. But Steve has never gone down without a fight, either, and he has never backed down when Bucky was in danger, and Bucky knows that Steve would chase after him to the ends of the earth. He knows Steve Rogers better than anyone, and he knows himself too: where Steve runs, Bucky will follow. So he goes looking for him.

            Bucky decides to make it simple for the both of them: He waits until Steve gets discharged from the hospital, and a couple of days after that he breaks into his apartment. He waits three hours in the dark before the key turns in the lock, and Steve walks in the door.

            Seeing Steve for the first time in so many years is exactly like waking up from cryogenic frost. He feels all the air rush into his lungs, fast, trying to fill with what seems like every missed breath since he last surfaced. He feels every muscle in his body want to grow warm and turn soft, and it’s a struggle to keep a handle on himself strong enough to rise to his feet.

            Steve walks past him when he first comes in, going into the bedroom instead. Bucky doesn’t mind; he is very good at waiting, and besides, he knows how to make him come. He taps his foot, just once at the toe of his boot, against the floor. Then he stands up and silently crosses the room, slinking back into shadows in the corner across from where he made the noise.

            Steve appears in an instant, quiet as anything, but Bucky can still sense him. Bucky thinks he would probably sense him at the very end of the world. He would, and he did. After all, he knew Steve even beyond the grave.

            Steve raises the shield he’s got in one hand, the much-used one that Bucky recognizes from their fighting on the bridge, and before that too—from the old days, back in the war, when he lived at Steve’s back and knew the shape and color of that shield like he knew Steve’s own breathing. Bucky tracks Steve’s gaze as it jumps around the room. It lands on the corner where Bucky is hiding, and he raises both hands out of the shadows. Steve raises the shield to cover the bottom half of his face. One hand grips the edge like he’s ready to throw.

            “Christ almighty, it’s just me.”

            It’s the closest he’s gotten to joking in a very long time, and the tease sticks to the roof of his mouth strangely, like rationed peanut butter: wrong and coveted and unreal. Still with his hands raised in the air, Bucky ducks out fully into the faint light slanting in from where the moon shines in through the window in all its dusty dimness.

            It has been a very long time. It has been seventy years.

            “Steve,” says Bucky.

            Steve looks back at him for a long time. He only lowers his shield about an inch, but his grip with the other hand never loosens; Bucky notes that with a kind of grim satisfaction. Well, he guesses he’s earned that. Steve’s eyes are squinted, gaze shrewd and appraising. Bucky wonders how much of his old self still shines through the years, but hey—Steve recognized him through all that time, all that space, out in the middle of a street in Washington, D.C. He has to make even more of a familiar picture here, standing in Steve’s apartment with a wry grin on his face like he knows he’s done something to get in trouble, but like he also knows Steve won’t do anything more than pout.

            “It’s just me,” said Bucky, stepping further into the room, but Steve raises his shield again in defense and offense, and Bucky pauses. He knew this would happen, but it still hurts. For the first time, a sliver of ice pierces the edge of his heart. More hesitantly, he says, “It’s Bucky.”

            Steve narrows his eyes further. With his eyes mistrustful, and his shield pointed at Bucky’s face, Bucky still thinks the worst part is watching Steve shift into a stance like he’s ready to fight, and he says, “Who the hell are you?”

 

\- - -

 

            There’s a guy standing in his apartment with his arms raised up like surrender, and Steve gropes around the wall next to him for a light. He doesn’t take his eyes off the intruder, just in case it’s all a ruse and he’s only waiting for Steve’s guard to drop before he pounces.

            The light flicks on, and Steve pauses, studying him. He looks vaguely familiar.

            “Oh,” he says. His raised shield never wavers, although after reading the files all the way through, he’s no longer sure it’s an effective weapon on its own. They fought brutally a few weeks ago. “You’re him. The Winter Soldier.”

            The Winter Soldier in question flinches like Steve just threw something heavy at him. Steve remembers what he just called himself.

            “Bucky, right?” He nods sharply. Steve does too, to himself. “How did you get in my apartment, Bucky?”

            Bucky looks very confused. There’s something else there too, something that looks like pain buried underneath the bemusement, like Steve’s still laying in punches. He doesn’t answer the question.

            “What are you doing here?” Steve tries again.

            Bucky lowers his hands. “I came to find you,” he says, “before you did something stupid.”

            He grins this loping, easy grin like he just told a tremendous joke. Steve blinks at him.

            “You have ten seconds to tell me what you’re doing here or get the hell out,” he says gruffly. “I read your files; I don’t like Soviet assassins traipsing through my place. I’m kind of funny like that.”

            Bucky’s brow furrows, and he leans against the wall beside him. Everything he does is a little jerky, a little off, like he’s playing the part of insouciance but he forgot most of the script. It does nothing to soothe Steve’s nerves about him.

            “Ten,” Steve warns.

            “Alright, alright.” Bucky shrugs off the wall and steps closer, like he doesn’t even notice that Steve’s got his hackles and his sort-of weapon raised up, like he isn’t even scared. Steve wonders if it’s because he thinks he can take him in a fight, or if there’s something else, maybe something genuine to his surrender. “Jesus, Steve. What’s going on?”

            “What do you mean?”

            Bucky doesn’t really smile; it’s more like a predator showing off all of his teeth. He says, “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

            Steve colors faintly. He grits his teeth firmly and says, “Nine.”

            “Alright!” says Bucky again, more sharply now. “Can we sit down and talk for a second? Maybe with less weapons?”

            “The way I read about it, that’s not usually your style.”

            Bucky grimaces at that, but he says, “You never used that shield to do anything but defend yourself, and you won’t start now.”

            Steve hesitates, but it’s no use if the guy already knows.

            “Is this a test?” he asks anyway.

            Bucky shrugs. “Is this?” he returns, gesturing between the two of them.

            After a stilted moment, Steve lowers his shield and lets it hang limply from his arm, but he doesn’t unhook it.

            “Talk,” he says stiffly. “You’re not here to fight me, or you would have tried already.”

            Bucky ends up sitting all splayed out on the couch, arms and legs all spread like he doesn’t have a single care in the whole entire universe, like there isn’t one thing he has to be wary about. Something about it looks familiar, looks natural; but it’s affected too, like a habit he wishes he could have back. Steve doesn’t trust a hair on his head.

            Bucky says, “You got me. See, it’s a little difficult to jog someone’s memory when you’re just getting it back yourself. Alright, here’s what I know is true: Your name is Steven Grant Rogers. We grew up together; we fought in the war together.”

            Steve shakes his head. “No, I remember,” he says, but it’s a struggle and he doesn’t, not really. “I had a team…”

            “The Howling Commandos,” Bucky supplies, but he could have read that anywhere and it’s not really proof at all.

            “Yes,” Steve says, a little sharply. “You weren’t there. There was Dugan, and Jones, and…and…”

            “Morita,” says Bucky, leaning forward so his elbows are resting on his knees, and he spreads his hands. “Falsworth. Dernier.”

            “Stop it,” Steve snaps.

            “Happy Sam. Pinky.” says Bucky. He hesitates a second, then adds, “Barnes.”

            Steve falters—Is that right?—but then he remembers what he read in the files.

            “You won’t insert yourself into my memory,” he says. “Stop gaslighting me. It isn’t going to work.”

            “I’m _not_ doing that, Stevie,” he says, and Steve flinches. “I’m just trying to tell you what happened. What’s going on? You hit your head, didn’t you? After the quinjet?”

            “You put me in the hospital,” says Steve. “My memory is coming back in pieces.”

            “I also pulled you out of the Potomac,” says Bucky. “Don’t you know why I did it?”

            “I don’t know,” says Steve, cagily. “I don’t know.”

            “Yes, you do,” says Bucky, slamming his hand down on his knee, and Steve’s shield jumps up in an instant. Looking frustrated, Bucky runs his hands through his hair and gets to his feet. “Steve, your memory is going to come back. I’ll still be here when it does!”

            “I’m already mostly healed,” says Steve. “If you were a part of it, I would know by now! Maybe not everything, but I would know that much!”

            “Oh yeah?” says Bucky. “Do you even remember fighting me on the carrier, or did you just pick that out of a file?”

            “Shut up,” says Steve. “You don’t know anything.”

            “No, _you_ don’t know anything!” says Bucky, his volume climbing. “Why is your memory trying to erase me? How come you remember everything else?”

            “Because all of that really happened!” Steve counters, shouting right back. “Don’t you think, if you were telling the truth, I would have some kind of clue by now? It’s been weeks! My memory’s been coming back in pieces this whole time! God, just—just get out of my apartment! I don’t even know why you’re here.”

            Bucky’s hands are in the air again.

            “I’m not gonna fight you, Steve,” he says again.

            Steve grits his teeth. “That’s not what I said,” he insists, but his shield is up and he knows it. It takes a measured moment to lower it back down to his side. He shakes his head wearily. Pointing at the door with his unarmed hand, he says, “Just get out.”

            “Fine, I’ll go,” says Bucky, dipping his head. “I meant what I said though, Steve. When your memory comes back, I’ll be here.”

            Steve opens his mouth to reply. Before he can give a suitable retort, though, Bucky turns and climbs out the window. By the time Steve leans out and looks onto the street, Bucky is already gone.

            Steve takes a couple deep breaths. Then he picks up his phone and calls Natasha.

            It’s nearing midnight, but of course she’s awake. She answers on the second ring and gives a smooth hello. At Steve’s return greeting, though, she seems to perk up considerably.

            “Oh, Steve. How are you? What’s going on, is everything alright?”

            “I—yeah,” says Steve. “There’s been a development.”

            “Okay,” says Natasha cautiously. “Did you wanna elaborate on that a little more, or should I call in for my psychic?”

            “Ha ha,” he says blandly. “Look, you know that file you gave me at the hospital?”

            “Sam gave you,” she corrects automatically, but he can hear how suddenly alert she is. “Why?”

            Steve takes a deep breath. “Can you come over? Don’t tell anyone.”

            “Of course,” says Natasha. “I’ll slip out and be there in twenty.”

            Steve exhales. He doesn’t even bother to ask where she’s slipping out from, because he has an idea and really, her and Clint’s business isn’t any of his own. Instead he just thanks her and hangs up.

            Natasha shows up twenty minutes later on the dot, looking as unrushed and unruffled as ever. Steve offers her coffee he brewed and they sit around his kitchen table together.

            “I don’t know where to begin,” Steve confesses.

            Natasha offers, “At the beginning,” and he doesn’t think she’s teasing even though it sort of sounds that way. He tips his head at her in acknowledgment, but does not immediately answer her, choosing instead to watch his hands as they play relentlessly with his mug. At long last, though, he finds the words that he wants to say.

            “He was here,” he says, “the….you know. Him.”

            Natasha does not look shaken. Calmly, she asks, “What happened?”

            “Why was he here?” Steve presses. “Why did Sam give me that file? Who is he?”

            Natasha’s brow furrows. “What did he say to you?”

            “He was…” Steve waves his hands around like it might help him better find the words, “rearranging history. He kept saying he was in the Howling Commandos with me, back in the war. Why would he…what’s the point?”

            He knows he’s not hiding anything very well right now, knows that Natasha can hear every bit of the concern and discomfort and upset dripping off of his voice, but he doesn’t care. It’s not Natasha’s way, but Steve prefers being open with his friends. Natasha’s looking shaken again and at first Steve thinks it’s because of what Bucky said, but then she looks him directly in the eye.

            “Steve, how bad is your head injury still?”

            Steve looks at her, a bit aggrieved at the underlying accusation.

            “Not bad,” he says, more defensively than he means to. “There are still some gaps every now and then, but mostly everything is put back where it should be. The serum stitches my brain back together just as well as my body.”

            Natasha inhales, and for the first time he can recall, it sounds a little unsteady. She passes a hand over her eyes and says, “Steve, Bucky Barnes is your best friend in the world.”

            Steve, well. Steve has no idea what to say to that. He settles on, not very eloquently, “Excuse me?”

            “Your best,” she says, touching his hand, “friend.”

            Steve says, “That’s not possible.”

            Natasha says, “Let me tell you a story.”

 

            She does more than that; she tells him history, weaving together this portrait of a life that sounds so good, Steve can’t believe that it might be real. By the end of it, the clock is ticking past one in the morning and Steve has his head in his hands and he doesn’t know what to think. Natasha is quiet now, letting him process it all however he wants. He takes several long moments before he can look up.

            “This doesn’t make any sense,” he says.

            Natasha, now wearing a calculating look, nods.

            “I know,” she agrees fervently. “I just don’t understand. How can the serum bring back everything else for you, but not him?”

            “Maybe he’s better left forgotten.”

            “I know you don’t mean that.”

            “I don’t,” Steve says quietly. Then, “Nat, what if I never get my memories back?”

            Natasha shakes her head slowly. “We just have to jog your memory,” she says. “Maybe it’s like, the more important the memory, the longer it takes to put everything back together. Maybe the serum just wants to get it right.”

            “You make it sound alive,” says Steve, startled into laughing a little.

            Natasha grins at him. Even now, when he knows she’s purely happy, he thinks she looks a little feral when she’s baring her teeth.

            “Steve,” she says at last, “I think you have to see him again.”

            “I know,” he sighs. “I’m just afraid of what will happen when I do.”

            They fall into separate, speculative silences after that. Steve thinks that he doesn’t really know which would be worse, remembering Bucky completely or starting on a fresh slate alone.

 

\- - -

 

            Steve gets in contact with him three days after Bucky breaks into his apartment. Bucky is shamelessly stalking him by now, because he doesn’t plan on giving up this easily, and Steve must know that. He finds that Steve is about as unsubtle as Bucky is undetectable; Steve just puts up a sign in his window that says “BE HERE AT 8” and Bucky figures it’s as effective as anything else, because he does see it, and he will be there.

            He can’t give up all of his habits so easily, though. He still breaks in and plans on waiting for him there, because he can’t imagine walking up and just knocking on his front door. What’s the point, Bucky thinks, of being a spy if he can’t even break into his best friend’s apartment every now and again? He gets in at eight sharp and sits down in the dark living room, picking an open spot on the couch this time.

            He finds that he shouldn’t have bothered with being quiet, though. When he looks up, Steve is already sitting across from him, his fingers steepled together in the dark.

            Bucky arches an eyebrow in greeting.

            Steve says, “Well, that was dramatic.”

            “I always am.”

            They just look at each other for a second, and then a second stretches into a minute, and that minute becomes a very long time. Bucky sits there in the dark, rememorizing every feature of his long lost friend’s face, and he thinks about how he has been quietly loving Steve for a very long while indeed.

 

\- - -

 

            Steve wants to scream into the silence, but he doesn’t want to make the first move. He feels like he’s sitting on the edge of a cold war and he doesn’t know anything anymore, really. He thought he knew who Captain America was, but he didn’t because look how easily his mind fell apart; he thought he knew who Steve was, but he didn’t because look how easily his heart did too, crumbling over somebody that he can’t even remember anymore. Steve aches desperately, and he doesn’t even know what for.

            Nobody’s moved in nearly twenty minutes. It would be kind of ridiculous if Steve wasn’t so frustrated at the whole damn world right now.

            Bucky leans forward so his elbows are on his knees, his hands folded together. He says, “So. It’s good to see you again.”

            Steve snorts and leans back in his chair. “Were you this annoying back in Brooklyn, too?” He waves his hand when Bucky’s expression shifts, and says, “Don’t. Natasha told me. I still don’t….”

            Bucky sets his jaw. “Right.”

            Neither of them say anything again for a brief moment, and Steve worries that they’re about to plunge once more into an interminable silence.

            “Why are you following me?” he says to avoid just that, but after it comes out of his mouth he really wishes that he had picked any other topic but this one.

            “How did you know?” Bucky returns, looking completely unbothered with being caught.

            “I didn’t,” says Steve, a smile toying at the edges of his mouth. “I made an educated guess, based on what I knew. I figured if we were really close back before the war, you wouldn’t give up on me so fast.”

            Bucky chuckles, shaking his head. His long hair flies in his face when he does, even when he does it gently like that. Steve watches it go, a little mesmerized.

            “You’re quick.”

            “You came,” says Steve, shrugging one shoulder. “That told me everything I needed to know anyway.”

            “I came back from the dead,” says Bucky, tipping his head. “Twice. I might as well give myself a purpose, since the world seems more interested in throwing me out than giving me one.”

            Steve carefully refuses to comment on how Bucky’s chosen purpose seems to be him, because he doesn’t know, just yet, what he wants to do with that information. He tucks it away for later instead and moves on.

            “What’s your plan, exactly?” he asks. “Are you going to start reeling off memories until one of them sticks?”

            “I’m not worried about your memory,” says Bucky, smiling just barely. Steve isn’t even sure how he notices it, really.

            “You’re not?” says Steve. “Everybody else is.”

            “I came back from the dead,” he says again, matter-of-factly, “but before that, I knew you from beyond the grave. Recognized you even when I was dead, and someone else completely. I don’t really see why you won’t too.”

            Steve blinks at him. Something has risen up and seized his throat and it won’t let him go, and he can’t say anything back to that. Bucky tilts his head the other way and his lips curl up in a little more of a smile. Steve surmises that he can’t say anything because there is nothing to say.

            At last, he breathes out all at once and says, “Wow, did you pick that up from a moving picture or what, Buck?”

            “Why, is it making you swoon like a leading lady?”

            Steve tips his head back and laughs. On the same momentum, he swings his attention back to Bucky and says, “Wow. _Wow_. Okay, you got me: I’m impressed.”

            Bucky looks delighted about it, too.

            “You always liked getting wooed,” he says, and he shines with it, really. “If a girl so much as smiled at you, or near you, you were so gone for her.”

            “I was not,” Steve says, but he guesses that he doesn’t really know. Even probing back in his head, he finds that a lot of his memories are smudged out around the edges, like they’re trying to shift and shamble into something new even as he replays them in his head. All of it is foggy, like his brain doesn’t know how to shroud only Bucky and leave the rest untouched, like Bucky seeped too far into Steve’s head to lift back out so easily. Steve thinks it’s a very strange way for his own brain to try and write Bucky out of his history, and then decides to ask. “How do I know I can trust you? How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

            Bucky shrugs. “Ask me anything,” he says. “Ask me something that you haven’t told anyone, something that isn’t in the history books. I bet I’ll know it.”

            “Okay,” says Steve, narrowing his eyes a bit. He looks for any possible loophole in this, but he can’t really find one, so he goes searching for a secret instead. At long last, he settles on, “When I was sixteen, there was a couple of weeks where I went to the park every day to do something. What was it?”

            There is a moment after he says it where they just stare at one another, each with a smug smile on their face like they know something that the other doesn’t.  Bucky grins.

            “It wasn’t the park, it was the docks,” says Bucky, and Steve’s smile slips a little. “You said you went down there to feed the fish that were swimming around, but you really went down because you heard that some of the workers were disrespecting the women that went by there on their way around. The funny thing is, you were this scrawny little punk and couldn’t have stopped any one of them. So instead, you’d see a pretty lady and before any of them could start in on her, you would call out that her hair looked nice or something else about her that you were genuinely interested in. Soon the others were doing less catcalling and more complimenting, and then you started really liking the workers down there, so you kept hanging out anyway.”

            Bucky’s smile has faded into a mixture of nostalgia and fondness alongside that smug edge by the time he’s finished. He leans back in his seat, clearly pleased with himself and maybe a little bit with Steve too. Steve just stares at him for a while, because that’s how long it takes him to unstick his jaw. He works to look less impressed when he opens his mouth again, but he’s not sure he pulls it off very well.

            “Well, I also wanted to feed the fish,” says Steve, and Bucky laughs. “How did you know all that?”

            Bucky shrugs. “I was working there a couple days a week. One morning I came back and you were just sitting there, and I asked what you were doing. But I saw you sometimes, you know, doing what you were really doing. I never said anything to the guys, but of course I knew.”

            Steve sighs and leans back too, trying to stretch his worldview out to include this new information too.

            “Is that how we met?” he asks, looking up at Bucky again.

            Bucky’s face twists. He sounds deeply troubled when he says, “No, it’s not. We met because I was walking to school and even when you were eight, you were real bad at keeping your fists to yourself. You were also bad at winning fights you started.”

            Bucky’s giving him this teasing little smile, and it makes Steve’s heart ache that he can’t share the memory and return it. He shakes his head.

            “What are we going to do?” Steve asks.

            Bucky sighs. “We start from the beginning, I guess,” he says. “We start over where we’ve landed, ’cause this is the hand we’ve been dealt. And we figure it out from there.”

            They say nothing to each other for a long and pensive minute. Steve wonders what he’s going to do, and how they can move on from here. He wonders about what he wants to do, even. He doesn’t know Bucky now, past the fact that they tried to kill each other almost a month ago and now Bucky seems ready to look past all that towards the childhood they had together, one which Steve can’t remember at all, and he doesn’t know what is the right thing to do anymore. He also doesn’t know if the right thing for Bucky and the right thing for himself is the same, and he doesn’t know how to do both, or either.

            After a long moment of contemplation, he looks up from where he’s been staring at his lap and finds that Bucky is watching him, too. He has no idea what shows on his face.

            “I should go,” says Bucky. “I don’t know who’s still looking for me, and they’ll know I came here.”

            Steve doesn’t ask. He guesses there are probably a lot of people, both HYDRA and SHIELD, that want Bucky taken in dead or alive. He gets up because Bucky does first, and then he pauses.

            “You don’t have to break in next time,” he says. “I can give you my direct line.”

            They both know that Bucky probably already has it, but the gesture is the same. Steve reels off his number and Bucky nods like he’ll remember it, and then they’re just two people standing in the center of a room with nothing else to say to each other. Unlike earlier though, Steve thinks there’s a corollary to the whole situation: Nothing else to say to each other _for now_. It’s that uncertainty of the future that swells his heart back to normal size, and he nods at Bucky, who turns automatically away from the door. Steve doesn’t tell him that he doesn’t have to go that way, because he understands about habits that are too old to be broken.

            Right before he climbs back out the window, Bucky looks over his shoulder.

            “Hey,” he says, and Steve looks up. “We should do this again sometime. Maybe even over coffee.”

            He gives a flippant little grin and disappears right after, so Steve doesn’t have to worry about him sticking around to see his face, but his heart is beating faster. He’s pretty sure he just got asked out on a date by the world’s deadliest sniper. The ridiculousness of the whole situation washes over him, and Steve ducks his chin to his chest when the thought tugs out a startled little smile, not a lot, just a spark in the cold dark of the world he’s in. Oh, Bucky. Steve can kind of understand why somebody might stay tethered to him in the grave. Maybe. There is just something magnetically attractive about him that makes Steve want to come back again and know him the way his body seems to. He could feel it the whole time they were sitting in his living room, this inclination to mold himself around Bucky; he thinks it must have been born long ago in Brooklyn, and it’s muscle memory to carve out a space for him now. Steve wants to know him like his heart already does.

            Everything in him aches in a good way, like he was just jostled apart and set back together anew, and he didn’t realize he was put together wrong before until he felt how much better it is now. It was how he felt after the serum, and it’s how he feels now.

            He thinks about calling Natasha or Sam but decides against it. He can debrief them in the morning. For now he climbs into bed and lays there for some time in the dark, thinking about all the ways his world is different now, even though nothing has really changed.

 

\- - -

 

            Bucky sets the date next time. He calls Steve from a phone that he admittedly broke into somebody’s house to use, and when the answering machine comes on Bucky gives a place and a time and hangs up without even saying who it is. He believes, though maybe he shouldn’t, that Steve will just know. Whether or not he recognizes his voice, Bucky figures he can’t have too many people on the run calling his cell phone, so he’s probably the safe bet anyway.

            He picks somewhere innocuous to meet so nobody will care enough about their presence to take notice, where there’s already so many people that it’s impossible for anyone—even the two of them—to stand out.

            The park he chooses is a small area, with sidewalks perfect for joggers and grassy parts good for children and dogs. It’s midafternoon when Bucky gets there, and the park is filled, but he spots Steve right away anyway. He’s long past surprised that he can pick him out of a crowd.

            He sits next to Steve on the bench wordlessly. Steve doesn’t startle, just turns around slow.

            “You came,” says Steve, as though he had reason to worry and not the other way around.

            Bucky nods jerkily. “So did you.”

            Steve laughs, but it sounds a little helpless. “Was it ever a question?”

            “I wasn’t sure,” said Bucky, shrugging one shoulder. He can see that Steve gets a little uncomfortable at that, so he turns his face away from him, giving him a moment to collect himself; Steve always did like to do that in private. Instead Bucky looks around at the park and says, “So, what do you want to do?”

            He peeks at Steve beside him, and he looks more put together now. Still, Bucky doesn’t know what he expects him to say; that he wants to start over, that he wants to never see him again? Steve doesn’t answer cosmically though. Instead he just shrugs one shoulder and says,

            “I don’t know. I’m kind of hungry. Want to get some dinner?”

            Something about being here, out in the open with Steve where neither of them have anything to hide and there’s a strange mingling of the possibility of nothing and of everything there are their feet, and Bucky is filled with a euphoria that he hasn’t felt in a very long time. He tilts his head back and laughs, and he knows it’s all kinds of ridiculous; Steve is looking at him like he’s completely insane, and it just makes Bucky laugh harder, and he absolutely can’t stop. Finally, he looks back at Steve, still grinning wildly.

            “That sounds great,” says Bucky. “Want to find a cart?”

            And Steve, amiable, gets to his feet. It’s such a simple thing, just getting dinner from a hot dog cart on the corner of a random street in the city, but it’s that normalcy that does Bucky in. In that moment, he doesn’t care whether or not Steve ever remembers who he is. This—sitting on the curb, laughing at a joke Steve told and having the mustard on his cheek pointed out—Bucky could live and die in this reality, even if it’s not the one he’s known or wanted, even if it’s completely new.

 

\- - -

 

            Sam is wary of this friendship that Steve doesn’t realize he’s struck up until he’s two months deep and Sam is rolling his eyes exasperatedly and telling him that he can’t go on like this.

            “You don’t even know him, man,” he says, crossing his arms and blocking Steve’s way out the door. He looks like he’s casually blocking the exit, but as Steve just told him that he was heading out to meet Bucky for coffee, he’s pretty much positive that the stance and location are on purpose.

            “He knows me,” says Steve. “And I know him now, too. I don’t care who he was before.”

            “Well, he’s been a lot of things in between before and now, too,” Sam reminds him. Like Steve could forget—he has a metal arm, for God’s sake, it’s a little hard to miss or forget the reason. “Look, I’m not saying _don’t_. I just think you need to be careful.”

            “He’s not going to hurt me,” says Steve, a little stung on Bucky’s behalf.

            “That’s not what I meant.”

            “You were the one who gave me the files in the first place,” says Steve. “Why did you do that if you didn’t want me to use it? Isn’t this what I wanted, before?”

            “I was the one who said I would help you find him!” says Sam. “I’m just saying, make sure the two of you are on the same page before you do anything stupid.”

            “Like?”

            “Like fall in love with him again,” says Sam sharply, and Steve stops short. “Oh, don’t give me that look. You were in love with him before and you’re sure as hell about to be in love with him now.”

            After a moment of contemplation, Steve decides to completely ignore everything about what Sam just said and he goes back to looking for his jacket. He finally finds it kicked under the couch and stands up, swinging it over his shoulders.

            “Look, Sam,” he says, while Sam steps out of his way only to follow him out into the hallway while Steve locks his door, “I appreciate what you’re saying, I really do. I won’t do anything stupid without consulting you first, alright?”

            He gives him a lopsided smile to indicate that it’s a joke, but Sam just rolls his eyes. Okay, he’s still not funny then. Good to know. They start walking down the hall together. When they get outside, Sam stops Steve with a hand on his shoulder.

            “I’m serious,” says Sam. “I’m glad you guys found each other again, alright, but I’m just saying…”

            “Sam, I’ll be careful,” Steve promises him, leveling him with the most serious look he can. “I swear.”

            Sam rolls his eyes and pulls away from him. “Man, that’s what you always say right before you fuck things up.”

            Steve shoves at his shoulder.

            “Shut up,” he says, and Sam’s laughing. “Alright, go. Go home, Sam, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

            “See you,” says Sam.

            They split off in different directions. The lecture makes Steve late by about fifteen minutes, but Bucky doesn’t seem to mind, just waves Steve over to the table he’s commandeered when he walks in.

            “Sorry, I got held up,” says Steve, sliding in across from him.

            “No sweat,” says Bucky. He pushes a cup across the table at him. “You still drink it mostly black?”

            “With two—”

            “—dashes of milk, yeah,” says Bucky, nodding at him. Steve picks up the coffee and sips at it; it’s perfect, of course. Steve raises his eyes to him, and Bucky looks satisfied.

            It’s moments like this that make Steve feel tripped up and wrong-footed sometimes, even now. Usually they’re just two friends hanging out together—albeit the most unlikely friends on the planet, all things considered—but sometimes Bucky says or does something and it occurs to Steve that Bucky has known him for a lifetime longer than Steve has, and it’s weird. Bucky says it’s no big deal, because he didn’t remember him for most of the time in between, but trying to do the math is too confusing so Steve doesn’t try to figure out who’s known and forgotten the other the most anymore.

            Now, he leans across the table.

            “Tell me something,” he says.

            “What kind of thing?” says Bucky, raising his eyebrows.

            Steve shrugs. “Anything. More things from before. What was our place like?”

            Bucky sighs, drumming his fingers against the tabletop. Steve watches him expectantly.

            “I told you,” says Bucky, “it’s all fuzzy up here still. I mean, I’ve got most of it, you know, but not all the details…I don’t know how much is because of the brainwashing, and how much is just because it’s been almost seventy years. How am I supposed to know what color our broke-down couch was anymore?”

            Steve looks down at his coffee. “I know,” he says. “I just…well, you know more than me.”

            Neither says anything for a moment, both stewing in what Steve imagines is the same frustration at the world’s cosmic cruelty, but then Bucky speaks up, and Steve’s attention jumps back to him.

            “When I turned eighteen, you were still a year younger than me,” Bucky starts, and Steve sits back to listen, pleased. “Besides, even after you were eighteen too, nobody ever believed you were old enough to drink. Anyway, right after my birthday, I kept on going down to the packy to pick up for us both. I just stocked up on whatever was cheapest, but I really, really liked…I don’t remember what brand, but some kind of bad gin. It was always gone real quick, so I figured you liked it too.

            “The funny thing is, you didn’t say anything to me at first,” says Bucky, grinning now at the memory. Steve watches him raptly. “It wasn’t until I was buying three bottles a week that I started to ask you if you were okay. You gotta remember, you were this scrawny little punk—I was worried that amount of booze would kill you. So I go into your room one day and try to have a _conversation_ —well, I wasn’t very good at those, even with you. And you’re just looking at me like I’ve grown about three new heads.

            “You let me talk myself damn near to death. The whole time you were just staring at me like you had no idea what the hell I was going on about. As soon as I was done, you just go, ‘Hey, Buck? I don’t even like gin. I only touch the whiskey sometimes.’ Then you pause and you go on and ask me if _I_ have a problem that we had to talk about.”

            “Did you?” asks Steve, leaning towards him more.

            Bucky laughs. “No,” he says, shaking his head. “No, that’s how we found out that the girl I was seeing was looting our liquor cabinets every time before she went home.”

            Bucky’s laughing more, and now Steve joins in with him.

            “Oh no,” says Steve.

            “I know,” says Bucky. “Christ, I don’t even remember her name anymore. I think she was this brunette girl I met at the garage—ah, who knows.”

            “You brought a thief into our home,” says Steve.

            “In my defense, she was a cop’s daughter,” says Bucky. “I figured she had her morals upright.”

            Steve snorts. “Any girl who’d go home with you…” he says, and Bucky gives him a look that sends him into another fit of laughter.

            “Like you’d know,” Bucky snorts. “I was a goddamn catch, Rogers.”

            “I’m sure,” says Steve, rolling his eyes. His heart shudders in his chest despite his teasing though; Bucky still _is_ a catch. He could be doing anything, being with anyone right now. And he’s sitting here. With Steve. Something occurs to him then, and he perks up and says, “Hey, so does that mean you were there when I knew Peggy?”

            Something flickers in Bucky’s expression, but Steve can’t read it fast enough and then it’s gone again.

            “Yeah,” says Bucky. He sounds normal enough, but he’s looking determinedly down at his coffee. “She was a good woman, and a damn good agent.”

            “You guys probably got along, huh?” says Steve thoughtfully. “I feel like you would have.”

            Bucky makes a noncommittal noise. Then he seems to think of something, because he says, “You know, we had our differences, but we respected each other. I heard she was sorry to see me go. She’s the reason a lot of the details about me made it into the Smithsonian exhibit. I guess you must have told her a lot.”

            Steve says nothing, because he honestly doesn’t know. Bucky doesn’t seem to expect an answer though.

            “I wish I could tell you,” he says at last. He looks down at his hands, clenched around his coffee cup. The warmth seeps into his hands though the Styrofoam. “I wish I remembered anything about you. All my memories with you in it—they’re just smudged out. It’s like you’re trying to creep your way in but my head won’t let you, and the memories look a little wrong but I can’t figure out what’s supposed to be in there, you know? Like I can’t figure out what’s missing. I know it’s you that they’re missing, but it doesn’t matter, because knowing that doesn’t mean I can force my memories to change back into the real thing. I just….I just wish I could remember all this stuff that you can, because it sounds amazing, and I want…”

            He sighs and shakes his head, trailing off. When he looks up, he expects Bucky’s attention to have wandered, or maybe for him to look a little concerned that Steve’s still struggling so much with this and putting so much energy into it all. Despite his rambling though, Bucky is looking at him steadily—just looking, his face completely blank. But Steve can’t turn away despite how the undivided attention makes him feel the need to fill the silence there, and his gut pinches like he’s been hit there, but it’s not entirely a bad feeling. Instead, it feels almost like his body doesn’t know what to do with how much Steve wants Bucky to never stop looking at him like that, like there’s nowhere more important for him to turn his attention.

            “Why do you think you can’t remember me still?” Bucky asks, tilting his head to the other side. “Aren’t you supposed to heal?”

            Steve smiles wryly. “I thought you had faith my memory would come back?”

            Bucky shrugs one shoulder and says, “I do. I’m just curious about what you think.”

            Steve looks down, drawing shapes on the countertop absently with his first finger.

            “I guess,” he says, and pauses. “Well, Natasha has this theory, you know. She thinks that…that the more important a memory is, the longer it takes for my brain to stitch it back together. I still get headaches sometimes, you know. Like I did when I first woke up in the hospital.”

            “Oh yeah?” For some reason, Bucky is smiling slightly. “I’m so important that it hurts?”

            Steve laughs, startled. “Shut up,” he says.

            Bucky’s still grinning then, and Steve’s heart constricts and pounds painfully. It’s strange—it’s just because of Bucky’s smile.

            “I’m not worried,” Bucky says, leaning back casually in his chair. He says this all the time, so Steve’s rolling his eyes before it’s even fully out of his mouth. “You’ll know me from beyond the grave too, Steve.”

            Sitting there, looking at him just _believe_ , so confidently, Steve feels warm in ways he’s not sure he even deserves. Bucky is flint, Steve realizes. His thoughts feel all scattered now. Bucky is flint and if Steve strikes enough times, and in enough ways, the whole world will finally catch fire.

            Steve clears his throat and glances toward the menu board. “Do you want to split a scone?”

            Bucky watches him like what he has to say about scones is the most interesting thing in the world.

            “What kind?”

            “Dipped in chocolate, maybe?”

            Bucky nods, and since he bought Steve’s coffee, Steve’s the one who gets up to get the food. One of the many good things about Bucky is that he’s one of the only people who fully appreciates just how many calories the serum makes him consume, because Bucky needs that much too. When he gets up to the counter, Steve gets two scones just for good measure and returns to the table.

            “So, what were you saying about you taking home all those women?” says Steve. Bucky looks at him in confusion, waiting for the punchline. Steve grins and says, “Do we have to worry about a bunch of mini grandkid assassins running around the city?”

            Bucky calls him a few names and Steve laughs uproariously like it was the funniest joke he ever told, and by the time they settle, that pinched feeling in his gut from before has left. Neither mention Steve’s memory again for the rest of coffee, and he’s grateful.

 

\- - -

 

            Bucky waits. He feels like he’s spending a lot of his time waiting nowadays, actually, but he doesn’t really mind; he’s comfortably existing in his resting period this time, and he’s done worse things than hang around with Steve all day while he waits for him to remember him, and he waits for the world to stop chasing him, and he waits for Steve to love him back. It doesn’t matter how long he has to wait, either. He’ll do it for as long as he has to, because he knows, deep down where conviction is born and his faith springs up plentifully, that Steve will rise up and come back to him. They’ve always been able to do that, for each other. Even when they didn’t know what they were doing at all.

            Back before the war, he spent all his time waiting for Steve to return his feelings even when he didn’t know he wanted him as more than a friend. During the war he spent all his time waiting to go back home to Steve; sure, he loved his country and believed in his cause, but like everybody else there, he just wanted to go back to someone special back home, even if his particular someone special didn’t care for him the same way. And after the war, for all the time that he was trapped in HYDRA, Bucky spent his days waiting for Steve to make him come alive again—even though he didn’t know himself anymore, let alone who Steve was, and he didn’t know he was waiting for anything at all.

            Then Steve coaxed his worn and weary heart right back to life again, and now he’s still waiting—waiting for Steve to remember, the way he remembers, all the ways that they keep each other fighting even when they don’t know who the enemy is or how long they’ll have to stand.

            Bucky isn’t counting the days, but he can’t stop his supersoldier heart from knowing far more than he ever will. He follows where it beats because it always brings him back to Steve, and one day he wakes up and knows that it’s been eighty-seven days since Steve fell into the Potomac—eighty-seven days since Steve knew who he was—even though he was never keeping track himself.

            Bucky wakes up and he knows, in his heart where he’s never been able to decipher but where he trusts implicitly anyway, that today is not going to be like all of the others. He walks along through the park where he and Steve first hung out that day over two months ago, just as the sun is rising up through the trees. He shoves his hands deep in his pockets and looks up towards the rising dawn.

 

\- - -

 

            Steve’s body has been faintly aching all day. He got pummeled pretty badly on the mission he and the rest of the team had been on yesterday, and although his body healed him just fine overnight, he still feels like he can tell where all of his bruises had been. Phantom pain doesn’t soothe over quite so easily as physical injury.

            He doesn’t have plans for the day except to go see Sam later, so he spends most of the day on his couch. Later, though, he decides to go on a run in the early afternoon. He puts on his jogging clothes and heads out, and he doesn’t really pick a direction but his feet take him towards a park, and he only recognizes it after he’s been running through it for a couple of minutes: this is where he and Bucky first hung out together, excepting the two times that Bucky broke into his apartment.

            Steve always liked jogging, for a couple of reasons. Back before the serum, he was sort of able to go running, but he was always winded quickly and it was frustrating to work out through his protesting lungs, and now it’s nice to be able to go on for as long as he wants. It’s also good just to keep in shape, and his enhanced muscles like being stretched pretty often or they protest about being sedentary. Jogging is also just a really good way to clear his head. It’s for this third reason that he gets on his workout clothes this morning and takes off.

            The park is nice, the fresh afternoon sun filtering down through the treetops, the sound of families and couples and dogs echoing all around him, and the last of his stress from yesterday’s battle fades away as he runs the path winding through the grass. He’s rounding a bend when his gaze skates around ahead of him, and he pauses when he recognizes the person sitting on the bench up ahead.

            “Bucky?” he says, slowing down and stopping in front of him.

            Bucky looks up. “Oh, hey. What are you doing here?”

            “Just going for a run,” says Steve, looking around the park. He sweeps a hand through his lightly sweating hair and puts his hands on his hips, looking back at Bucky. “What’s up?”

            “Just enjoying the outdoors,” Bucky says vaguely. Steve arches a brow at him, but decides not to say anything.

            “Want to join me?” he suggests instead.

            “Okay,” says Bucky easily, getting to his feet. “Mind if we slow it down a bit, though?”

            They start walking together, and Steve laughs.

            “Don’t think you can keep up with me?”

            Bucky shakes his head. “I _know_ I can outrun you, old man.”

            “Oh, right. Prove it.”

            “I don’t have to.”

            “You mean you _can’t_.”

            Bucky pauses, and Steve thinks he’s almost got him. His blood is jumping, adrenaline from his short workout still pumping through him, only heightened by Bucky’s presence.

            “Whatever you say, Cap,” Bucky says, and before Steve can mount a retort Bucky takes off running. Steve lets out a shout, half-laughing, and starts running full-speed after him.

            They last a long time, vying for first place the whole while, before they collapse on the grass laughing. It’s not that they’re tired, really, just that they both seem to realize that there’s no use fighting over a game neither of them are going to ever win and that could go on for a very long time. Steve rolls onto his back and beside him, Bucky does the same, both looking up at the deep blue sky. After a while Steve’s rapid breathing slows, and he’s more aware of Bucky lying beside him than he is of anything in his own body. He feels calm, and quiet. It’s a little like how Peggy used to make him feel.

            “Oh no,” Steve breathes.

            He hears Bucky rolling onto his side to look at him, and he turns his head sideways to meet his eyes.

            “What?” says Bucky. He looks comfortable and at ease though, not at all worried about whatever’s going on in Steve’s mind.

            “I think I lied to Sam,” he says ruefully.

            Bucky’s eyes crinkle at the corners when he smiles, Steve realizes. He doesn’t know how he only just noticed.

            “Oh?” he says lightly. He rolls back onto his back and looks up at the sky, but Steve doesn’t take his eyes off Bucky’s profile. “What about, anything important?”

            “A little,” says Steve. “Mm, I guess not much.”

            “I’m sure he’ll forgive you.”

            “Me too,” says Steve.

            He knows he will; Sam, although also a very forgiving kind of guy, has foremost always been clear that he wishes Steve happiness more than he wishes him anything else even if he hasn’t always agreed on the methods Steve uses to get there. Steve watches Bucky’s eyes close and knows that he hasn’t felt such bone-deep contentment in a really long time. He guesses that even he doesn’t know exactly how long.

            “What did you lie about?” Bucky says mildly.

            Steve looks at him, and he feels quieter inside than he has since he was a kid. A memory is burgeoning, but it won’t quite break through yet. Bucky lets his metal arm flop down on the grass above his head and he stretches minutely on the grass. He looks as comfortable as Steve feels.

            Bucky’s still waiting for an answer, though. Steve contemplates how to tell him, and then he knows. When the thought comes, it washes clear and full over Steve’s whole body, nestling into his blood. As easily as breathing, Steve lifts himself up onto one elbow, leans over Bucky on the grass, and kisses him soft.

            It’s even easier than breathing, he realizes. Bucky presses up into him like he’s afraid Steve’s going to pull away, and he threads his skin-and-bone hand through Steve’s hair. At first it’s just an easy caress of his fingers, lightly running through the strands, but then he gets a better grip with them and he open his mouth beneath Steve’s, and it’s perfect. It’s not anything deep, just the press of their lips and the lightest teasing of their tongues, but Steve feels himself going lightheaded and he thinks it might be because he’s lifting clear off the ground and straight into the clouds. If Bucky goes with him, he thinks he might be okay if that really happened and he was never heard from again.

            After a long moment that Steve kind of hopes will never end, they pull apart; Bucky lays back down on the grass, his fingers still playing lightly with Steve’s hair, and Steve hovers above him. Bucky’s eyes are still closed, and Steve memorizes all the lines in his face, all the scars and smooth skin, how his lips dip up at the corners when he’s feeling quiet too.

            “God,” Bucky breathes.

            Steve smiles.

            “Yeah,” he agrees. There was definitely something holy there.

            Steve keeps looking at him, thinking he could stay like this forever, but then—Bucky opens his eyes, and there’s a great rush in his gut, and the memory that was prodding at him bursts through the mental block that was covering it. Steve blinks: the last time he felt such sudden, deep peace was when he was eight, his fists bloody from a back-alley fight, and he looked up at a newcomer’s strong voice and felt an ocean of calm let itself loose in his stomach.

            Bucky must see something shift in his face, but Steve can’t move, even when Bucky’s hand reaches up and touches his cheek, so gently. At first the memory is just a trickling, but then it’s a deluge—and Bucky is just looking at him, and he has absolutely no idea about what’s going on in Steve’s head.

            “What is it?” says Bucky.

            His thumb catches on the corner of his mouth and Steve recenters his gaze on Bucky’s. This isn’t just contentment; it’s a thrill, the realest thing he’s ever known. He wants Bucky to feel it too, because he’s the one who never lost faith, the one who always believed it.

            “Bucky,” he breathes. “God…you were right. Of course you were right.”

            Bucky’s brow furrows, but it’s with a lot of affection that he keeps looking at Steve and stroking his cheek, and Steve’s never felt safer in his whole entire life. Whatever’s on Steve’s face, it must register somewhere in the back of Bucky’s head, because all of a sudden he’s grinning and Steve knows that he, like Steve, must be filled up so full of emotion that he didn’t know he could be this happy, either.

            “Steve?”

            “I know you,” says Steve, marveling. “God, _of course_ I know you. Bucky.”

            “Steve…”

            “I would,” Steve promises. Bucky’s looking at him like he’s the only thing that keeps him quiet anymore, too. “I would know you from beyond the grave.”

            “You don’t have to,” says Bucky. His touch is so soft. “We’re alive, Steve. We’re finally alive together again.”

            Steve falls back onto his back beside him, and he can feel Bucky’s gaze on him, and it doesn’t matter. He’s so happy that he’s laughing, senselessly, breathlessly, just laughing and laughing on up at the sky.

            When he’s done, they lay there side by side on the grass. Bucky’s hand finds his where it’s resting, and Steve squeezes his back tight. Maybe they would know each other beyond the grave, sure—but they would bring each other back to life, too. Laying there, holding his hand, feeling quiet and alive for the first time in forever, Steve thinks that he could spend the rest of his days with the two of them staying alive together.

 

\- - -

 

            Bucky agrees. And as somebody who’s lived a couple of lifetimes already, he really thinks that he would know.

**Author's Note:**

> title from [half moon by blind pilot](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuIwRweZoec)
> 
> [find me on tumblr here :)](http://freyias.tumblr.com/post/154650037975)
> 
> xoxox


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